Letting Go
by Emma Arthur
Summary: Another 'Amplification' AU. Garcia's POV.


Garcia watches the agents go to get the UnSub who dispersed the anthrax.

.

She wants more than anything to go and see Reid as soon as she hears he is getting seriously worse.

(She wants to beg, and she just prays with all her heart.)

Hotch's orders all but prevent any of them to go hold his hand.

.

She's the only one who _knows_. She's researched it, she's talked with Dr Kimura and she knows that even if the inhalator is really the antidote, it's already too late, it has been since the aphasia started.

(It had been since he opened the lab's door.)

He's not going to make it.

He'll probably be dead by the time they're done analyzing the antidote.

They've already given up on the other three.

(And all the ones before, who are resting in body bags in the hospital morgue.)

.

She decides she's going to go anyway. The others aren't going to need her now.

(Not as much as Reid.)

She takes her car. When she arrives at the hospital, the nurses don't want to let her in the ICU where Reid is, saying he is too weak to have a visitor right now.

(She fights them, tries to go in anyway.)

Dr Kimura arrives with a grim look on her face. She puts a hand on Garcia's shoulder and guides her to the bed at the far left.

Reid has an oxygen mask on his face and he is unconscious.

(Not moving, so immobile, she has never seen him so immobile.)

His face is far too pale, even for him, and his arms are both hooked to IVs.

He looks in pain, even in his sleep.

.

Garcia knows in her heart that he is already gone, long before Dr Kimura tells her in a quiet voice that he hasn't woken up since he was brought into the hospital.

She says they are not going to try to resuscitate him when he stops breathing completely.

It's too late already.

.

Garcia can feel the tears on her cheeks when she takes his limp hand into both of hers. Her shoulders are slumped and her head bowed as she waits for the others to show up.

(They will come as soon as they can, but it isn't going to change anything.)

She knows Reid would not want them to watch him die, that he would want them to remember him healthy and laughing, not deathly pale and fading away. But she also knows she can't leave this room now.

(She wants to, she doesn't want to see him like that, but she can't let him die alone.)

.

She's woken up about half an hour later by the frantic beeping of the monitor above her.

She's fallen asleep with her head on Reid's arm, his hand still squeezed between hers, so tired from her crying and worrying.

(Now worrying won't do Reid any good, and she can't think about the others, she can't.)

Two nurses come running and ask her to step aside.

(She holds onto Reid's hand, even as his chest stills.)

From the door Dr Kimura shakes her head to tell them to leave her alone.

Garcia stares as the beeps of the heart monitor stop and give way to an endless wailing that tears her heart apart.

She can't move.

.

Dr Kimura murmurs time of death and slowly removes the mask and the IVs.

.

She takes Garcia by the shoulder and gently leads her outside while the nurses bring the white sheet up on Reid's face.

(She's seen this scene in movies so many times, with the sad music and everything, but in real life there is no music and no end to all this and oh god she can't see his face anymore and it can't be true.)

Garcia let herself be guided to a chair in the waiting room.

(She isn't waiting for anything, anymore.)

She's still staring into space. She's in shock. She doesn't feel much of anything right now, just the tight knot in her throat and the sick feeling to her stomach that can't translate into any kind of emotion.

(She doesn't move, she's going to fall, to break down if she moves, she needs to be strong for Reid but Reid is gone...)

.

She can't believe it.

She didn't want to believe it before, even if she knew, even if she felt it, but he was still alive and there was hope.

She's wasted time trying to convince herself it wouldn't happen, and didn't say the things she wanted to say.

He made her record the message for her mother (oh god how is she going to tell her?) and he said goodbye. Not in so many words, but they all heard it. He knew his time had come and he had accepted it.

(It wasn't fair, just so unfair, and she refused to think about it and she didn't say goodbye properly and she feels so bad.)

.

She sees an intern approach them.

"It was the antidote," he says.

Dr Kimura looks up and slowly shakes her head. The young man's face falls.

Garcia stares.

(She's not sure she's ever going to do anything else until she dies, too.)

.

She's cold. Shaking, shaking so bad that Dr Kimura has to put her hands on hers to steady them.

(Why is she even still here?)

She holds her until she calms down a bit.

.

Garcia's phone rings. It's Hotch.

"We're done here, we've got the guy," he says before she can greets him.

(She wouldn't have been able to, she doesn't even know if she can talk.)

She stays still for a moment, waiting for it to sink in. It seems so trivial right now.

(Who cares about the bastard when... when...)

.

She doesn't know what to do.

(She can't tell them over the phone, she can't tell them period, but she has to, she doesn't know how...)

"How's Reid doing?"

She opens her mouth, stops, closes it. Then she breaks.

She's sobbing in Dr Kimura's arms, she still can't speak, she's moaning in pain because it just hurts too much.

She's still stuck in this moment when his heart stopped beating.

(And she can't think about the future now, no, but the team wants to know, needs to know, and it's forced on her and it's too much.)

"Garcia? Penelope?" He sounds really worried now, he hasn't understood yet.

He doesn't want to (like she didn't).

He hears her sob and still can't make the connection.

(Reid and dead seem like polar opposites and it just can't happen).

.

Then Morgan's voice joins Hotch to ask her what's wrong.

Suddenly they both stop talking and their breaths catch.

(It's so synchronized it would be weird but they don't care, no one cares. Reid would have had something to say about this.)

(Only he doesn't.)

For a while, the only sound any of them hears is Garcia's sobs. She knows they are crying too, silently. She feels a little bit less alone in the world.

4/4


End file.
